When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry made their case for stepping down as senior royals but continuing to represent Queen Elizabeth, there were a few royal relatives who served as potential examples—Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who hold private-sector jobs while participating in many major royal events, and Prince Michael of Kent, the queen’s 78-year-old first cousin.
The queen turned down Harry and Meghan’s “half-in, half-out” proposal, and they’ve since moved on to entirely new lives in California. But the royal relatives who do work, and even live under the queen’s roof, continue to draw attention—and last week, the attention probably felt especially unwelcome.
On May 8, The Sunday Times and Britain’s Channel 4 released the results of an undercover investigation where they caught Prince Michael of Kent in a compromising position fit for the 21st century. The prince and his business associate Simon Isaacs, Marquess of Reading, joined a Zoom meeting with journalists who were posing as representatives of a South Korean gold-investment company, and, according to the newspaper, the two offered to sell access to the Russian government. Michael said he was “very excited” to work with the company and that he thought his long-standing connection to Russia “could bring some benefit” to the company. After Michael left the call, the marquess told the journalists that Michael has “confidential” access to the Kremlin, has made connections to Vladimir Putin for companies in the past, and is “Her Majesty’s unofficial ambassador to Russia.”
The investigation arrives after years of deteriorating relations between the U.K. and Russia, and in late April, British foreign secretary Dominic Raab imposed sanctions on 14 Russian nationals to ensure that the U.K. is not a haven for “serious corruption.” In addition to Michael, the Times said it reached out to four other royals under the guise of the fake South Korean company, in an attempt to see if some members of the family are trading on their status for financial benefit. (Three declined the offer, and one did not reply.) The issue has become a matter of widespread discussion in the aftermath of Harry and Meghan’s royal exit, as the couple signed lucrative deals with Netflix and Spotify. The newspaper noted that lawyers for Meghan had raised Michael’s financial status in legal filings. It also pointed out that unlike Harry, who was stripped of his security team and honorary military titles after he resigned as a senior royal, Michael has held onto those despite never serving as a working royal.
In a statement, Michael’s office denied any impropriety and distanced the prince from the marquess’s comments. “Prince Michael has no special relationship with President Putin,” Michael’s office said in response to the Times investigation. “They last met in 2003 and he has had no contact with him or his office since then. Lord Reading is a good friend, who made suggestions which Prince Michael would not have wanted, or been able, to fulfil.” In a statement to the Times, Reading said, “I made a mistake and overpromised and for that, I am truly regretful.”
Though Prince Michael hasn’t been nearly the same controversial figure as his wife, Marie Christine, Princess Michael of Kent, this potential scandal—and similar ones that preceded it—illustrate the difficulties of being “half-in, half-out.” Described along with his wife as “poor relations of the royal family” by The New York Times back in 1981, Prince Michael retired from the military that same year and later started his own consulting firm. Over the decades he’s had a series of business connections in Russia that have drawn occasional scrutiny—and through it all has continued living in Kensington Palace and appearing on the family balcony for Trooping the Colour.
For a royal, Michael has kept a relatively low profile. He is the son of the queen’s paternal uncle Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Princess Marina (who was also Prince Philip’s first cousin), and one of the queen’s closest living relatives, and the relationship between their families has always been close. In 1942, when Michael was only seven weeks old, George died in a plane crash while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II. In the aftermath, the queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary, and father, King George VI, financially supported Marina as she raised Michael and his two older siblings, Princess Alexandra and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, according to Marina’s biographer James Wentworth Day. Unlike Alexandra and the Duke of Kent, who both began carrying out royal engagements at a young age, Michael was expected to make his own way in the world, as the younger brother of the family without a title to inherit. When Marina died in 1968, she left a larger portion of her estate to Michael, knowing he would never receive a Civil List allowance, according to biographer Peter Lane.
Still, he followed a path that has become common for Windsor men. After finishing school at Eton, he entered officer training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and went on to spend two decades in the military. According to Lane, Michael befriended Marie Christine, who was separated from but still married to her first husband, while riding horses in Richmond Park, where Alexandra lives. Eventually, Marie Christine, a practicing Catholic, received an annulment for her marriage, and in 1978, the couple was wed.
Though the union was reportedly encouraged by Lord Louis Mountbatten, Philip’s close relative and adviser, an array of challenges stood in their way. At the time, the queen was still required by law to consent to many of her closest relatives’ marriages, and as the head of the Church of England, she was previously reluctant to give approval to relationships when one of the partners had been divorced. Until a law changing the statute came into force in 2015, members of the royal family were not allowed to marry a Catholic. After Michael agreed to renounce his place in the succession and was denied a ceremony in the Anglican Church, they were allowed to proceed. Because they had decided that any future children would be raised as Anglicans, they could not marry in the Catholic Church. In June 1978, they had a modest civil wedding in Vienna in front of about 20 close relatives.
Though the queen didn’t attend their wedding, she did give Marie Christine the ability to use the HRH title, a move that Lane described as “a special mark of royal approval.” The next year, the queen gave them a “grace and favor” apartment in Kensington Palace, and, according to a 2003 Tatler report, it was supposed to be rent-free for the rest of their lives. That came to an end in 2002, following press scrutiny, when the queen began paying market-rate rent from her own pocket on their behalf. By 2010, they were paying for the apartment themselves, The Sunday Telegraph reported at the time. In 2002, The New York Times reported that the queen “long ago promised the Kents they would be provided for,” perhaps following in the footsteps of her father and grandmother who supported Marina. At some point in time the queen began giving Michael an annual allowance of 125,000 British pounds, which ceased on his 65th birthday in 2007, the Evening Standard reported in 2009.
Michael’s interest in Russia seemingly began while he served in the military. In 1966, while Michael was a lieutenant in the 11th Hussars cavalry regiment, the Associated Press reported that he was learning Russian and hoped to sit for the civil service interpreter examination. In 1998, he became the patron of the Russo–British Chamber of Commerce, an organization that promotes and facilitates investments between the two countries, according to the chamber’s website, which led him to travel widely in Russia. In 2004, The Independent reported that Russian businesses were funding those trips, which included transportation by private jet. Due in part to his resemblance to his grandmother’s first cousin Nicholas II, the last tsar, Michael gained a level of fame and popularity in the country, and in 2009, he was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship.
The minor scandal over The Sunday Times investigation is just one in a series of controversies that have erupted over the way his businesses and public roles have mixed. In 2001, The Guardian reported that Foreign Office diplomats were concerned by the appearance of his “endless” international travel. In 2009, the Kents’ sold an array of their parents’ family heirlooms at Christie’s, amid a yearslong period of financial losses for Michael’s company, as The Telegraph later reported in 2013. “Their almost Victorian grandeur makes it rather sad that they must now solve their financial problems in public,” the Evening Standard wrote at the time. In 2012, The Times of London reported that one Russian businessman had funded the salary of Michael’s private secretary for six years, ending in 2008.
It’s hard to see the Times and Channel 4 investigation having a broader impact on the way the minor royals do business. At 78, Michael may be too set in his ways to find a new career path, and Marie Christine is still a tabloid staple—over the weekend you might have seen headlines about her reaction to the COVID vaccine. But ultimately, their story illustrates why it’s so difficult to be financially independent while you’re still living under the queen’s roof, the ultimate royal catch-22. If a family member keeps their financial dealings transparent, like Peter Phillips and his foray into Chinese–milk endorsements, they’re criticized for sullying the family name. But if they aim to keep their deals under wraps, they might find themselves in the middle of geopolitical intrigue. It’s also an illustration of why Harry and Meghan have been working with well-known companies, creating entertainment products, and trying to build their own brand. By conducting their business out in the open, they could be hoping to avoid the sort of ethical dilemmas exposed only by a sting operation.
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